Climate Change Authority report recommends ‘significant tightening’ of Australia’s existing emissions reduction target, to a 19% cut by 2020, and 60% by 2030. It also proposes a strict ‘carbon budget’, and a fund to buy cheap international credits.

Australia would need to increase its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target from its current minimum of 5 per cent on 2000 levels, to a minimum of 15 per cent, in order to make a responsible contribution to the international effort to restrict warming to a 2°C rise in global temperatures, the Climate Change Authority has found.

In its final report on Reducing Australia’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions, released on Thursday, the CCA has called for a “significant tightening” of Australia’s existing commitment to cut emissions, recommending a trajectory that would result in reductions of between 40 and 60 per cent below 2000 levels by 2030.

This would include using Australia’s carryover under the Kyoto Protocol to raise 2020 target by 4 percentage points, giving an effective emissions reduction target of 19 per cent.

The report also recommended a national emissions budget of 4,193 Mt CO2-e for the 2013–2020 period, and of 10,100 Mt CO2-e for 2013-2050, based on what might be considered Australia’s fair share of an increasingly tight global emissions budget.

It has also recommended the creation of a fund to go towards bottom fishing cheap emissions abatement by taking advantage of record low international carbon prices.

“A large supply of genuine emissions reductions is currently available in global markets at historically low prices. The budgetary cost of moving from the current minimum 5 per cent target to the Authority’s recommended target entirely through international purchases is estimated at between $210 and $850 million, assuming average unit prices of between $0.50 and $2 (current prices are under $1).”

The report – which was required by legislation passed by the Labor Gillard government – might be the final study concluded by the CCA, which the Abbott government has vowed to abolish, but will not be able to until it can get enough votes in the new Senate post July 1.

But the report highlights the growing gap between what analysts say needs to, and can, be done, and what will be possible under the Abbott government’s new Direct Action policy, which most economists say will be impossible to meet unless Kyoto credits are counted, and which will be incapable of reaching more ambitious targets recommended by the CCA without blowing the federal budget.

Pointedly, the CCA recommends the use of market-based emissions, such as the carbon price that the Abbott government wants to repeal, and the renewable energy target, which is also under threat. The report came as a new study from Oxford single out Australia for criticism for reversing its climate law.

But as Climate Change Authority chair Bernie Fraser told a press conference this morning, Australia’s emissions reduction task, as they see it, “is doable and it’s there to be done.”

Speaking at the release of the report, Fraser reiterated that the report’s findings were very much “driven by the climate science,” which he said had come from the rigorous processes that scientists go through and the careful way they write up their results.

As the CCA report notes, the current consensus in climate science suggests there is a 67 per cent probability that the rise in global temperatures could be held to 2°C if total global emissions between 2000 and 2050 were limited to 1,700 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

“What makes climate change such a challenging task for policy makers everywhere,” says the report, “is that roughly a third of this global emissions ‘budget’ has been used already.”

Fraser also noted that while most people seemed, now, to “believe” in climate change, that those beliefs came in different strengths, including the “weak belief” category, held by those (such as the majority of the federal Coalition) who were not entirely persuaded, or motivated to take credible action.

“This is not the kind of belief that one would have if one truly believed in the climate science and what it’s telling us,” he said.

Also challenged at the press conference were claims that the CCA’s recommended course of action on climate would be detrimental to the Australian economy.

“The economic cost of these measures is tiny in comparison to such things as fluctuations in the Australia dollar,” said economist and CCA board member Professor John Quiggin, and even more negligible when compared to the potential cost of unmitigated climate change.

Responding to the report’s release, Climate Institute CEO John Connor said he hoped the CCA’s recommended carbon budgets and emission targets would “shatter acceptance of the chronically short-sighted 5 per cent 2020 reduction target.”

But the Climate Institute also noted that, in some aspects of its report, the CCA should have been more ambitious.

“To achieve our national interest goal of helping avoid a 2oC increase in global temperature a more ambitious 2020 target of 25 per cent reductions and national carbon budget consistent with a high chance of avoiding dangerous climate change would further reduce the economic risks of delaying credible climate change action,” Connor said.

The Climate Council also backed the Authority’s recommendations, with CEO Amanda McKenzie reiterating the report’s major message: “that Australia must reduce emissions at a much more significant rate than we have been to date.”

“The world’s two largest emitters, China and the United States, are stepping up their efforts on climate change,” McKenzie said in statement on Thursday. “Both countries have emissions reduction targets and are investing heavily in renewable energy. The US has already reduced its carbon pollution 11%, so we know it’s doable for Australia.”

Leading renewable energy company, Pacific Hydro, has also weighed in on the report, stressing the importance of the country’s 20 per cent by 2020 Renewable Energy Target (RET) in achieving the recommended emission reduction targets.

“The reality is that in the absence of any other effective policy, the 41,000GWh RET must remain unchanged in order to meet the five percent emissions reduction target, let alone any increase in our emissions reduction target,” said Pacific Hydro general manager for Australia, Lane Crockett.

10 Comments

No beliefs needed here, just a willingness to address evidence-based observations.

At some stage there will need to be grownups again in Government. Currently the future of our citizens is being jeopardised by anti-science denial.

Alen 5 years ago

Lets hope WA makes this an early reality and shows abbott that the Australian population deserves to be treated better. Fingers crossed, id almost be tempted to move there myself and vote 15 different times, but the idea of being under another another state government like the current WA one gives me shivers

Barry 5 years ago

No wonder the Government wants to abolish the CCA before this report came out. It is one thing to believe in the science of climate change, it is another to actually do something constructive about it. Meanwhile how much is given to farmers for drought assistance in non El Nino years? How much will be given when we actually move into an El Nino year?

Concerned 5 years ago

Fine ,but how do you fund it?We are broke.

Peter Campbell 5 years ago

By not doing the what the coalition proposes: paying companies to make non-binding promises to think about doing something. Instead, you set a cap on emissions and auction the limited amount of emission permits. That brings in money that can be used for complementary action and compensation for the small increase in the cost of living. It is scalable so emission caps can be tightened to stay in line with measures taken by other countries. Wouldn’t it be good if we had a government that believed in that sort of market-based approach! Oops, that’s what we just got rid of.

Ronald Brakels 5 years ago

Australia is one of the least broke developed countries around. Off the top of my head, of the 34 OECD countries only Chile, Estonia, and Luxembourg have lower Gross Government Debt as a percentage of GDP. And of those nations Estonia is tiny and Luxembourg is less a country than a bank plus denture factory. How could you not know this? Have you been watching television and reading newspapers instead of memorizing raw economic data? What a boring life you must lead.

Concerned 5 years ago

I must have studied Economics at a different Uni than yourself.

Ronald Brakels 5 years ago

University? You can check that with a search engine and a few minutes. I hope you do. It will let me see if my memory is still working.

Concerned 5 years ago

.?.?

Tomagain 5 years ago

Do they not “believe” or is it just that they don’t care? What is so disappointing to me in this debate is that they don’t care about the world we are leaving for our children, and our children’s children. It is such a shorted sighted vested-interested view.